Scenes from a Summer's Day, 12

Scenes from a Summer's Day

Lounging around poolside on a hot, hot, summer's day!

And now for a nice hearty snacktime

Chili topped nachos

Scenes from a Summer's Day, 11

Scenes from a Summer's Day

Meanwhile... back to the water again... here's what we found!

Surf's UP! - - - WAY UP!

See!

Here's what our family missed while they were here.

These are much too dangerous for the young ones to jump over, but the big ones love to venture in and play when the waves go jumping way up and down.

Scenes from a Summer's Day, 10

Scenes from a Summer's Day

Major Outdoor Summer Projects

Summer is a time for taking to task those grander scaled projects in our home, and this week was no exception to the rule. A large load of cedar red bark mulch was ordered and only supposed to be delivered tomorrow. When the doorbell rang Monday afternoon this week instead, I became a little flustered because we weren't ready and it was just too early for four yards of bark mulch to sit idle on a tarp somewhere for the week.

In progress with 300 feet of
landscape paper to install

Our older son has been parentally employed the past few weeks; first painting the fence - two coats, cutting circles and edging around all thirty some trees on the property where the end result was to add bark mulch into the holes to complete the task. When the bark mulch arrived, he sprang into action, edging around the remaining trees not yet finished, and then swiftly sought out the wheelbarrow to get the bark mulch moving off the pile.

Muscle building 101 - hockey summer workout

Another project was to simplify and create a maintenance-free rear garden bed where all our bird feeders were installed. Last year when hiring our landscaping crew, they insisted our garden would be simple to keep up with, not so. Just ask our children how they enjoy the HUGE task of weeding this flower bed alone each week, no joy found there because the soil consists of much clay, so all those lovely weeds are very difficult to remove from their roots.

To create this maintenance-free mode for the back garden, the project entailed the removal of the existing bark mulch, installing landscaping black paper on the soil, returning the original bark mulch over the paper, and then continue with the addition of all new mulch from the pile in the driveway. It seemed easier than it was, so complicated with just the landscape paper alone to go around all the shrubs and bushes. Golly!

There is nothing quite like already feeling somewhat overwhelmed by this grand task looming ahead, but perhaps God had a funny sense of humor with the arrival of the load five days before of its scheduled timing.

He knows though that I have a husband who wouldn't sit still and just allow the rest of the family to bring this goal to fruition by standing around and watching us, likely instead he would feel tempted to work alongside of us when he shouldn't or worse yet, couldn't, but mustered up a bit of adrenalin because he felt obligated to pitch in.

(Note; Some of these photos aren't great. Thick in laborious duties, I never thought to take photos earlier in the project, and had my cell phone nearby, so guess what I used instead of my camera? Better some, than none!)

Repositioning the bark mulch afterwards

Lots of bending and stooping this day

(note - lone sunflower growing courtesy of bird feeder droppings)

Ah, but wisdom prevailed no doubt, because now after a long hot day of moving together in unison, taking breaks to get out of the summer's heat, hydrating well during it all - I'm pleased to announce TA DA!!! D-o-n-e! This team was terrific! This team was to be praised!


At days' end we were all stiff from stooping to pick the weeds out of the way, cutting and laying the paper, shoveling, raking, pushing a wheelbarrow, raking some more, you know - after much sweat in the 90 degree breezy heat, a fabulous group effort working hard, we did it and I am very pleased it is behind us.

D-O-N-E!

Looking at this garden bed on the size of our property, surely it doesn't look as big as it really is, however I took the photos below to give it some perspective.


Oh, and I stood our daughter in front of the willow tree we planted last year. It blossomed and grew well in just one year. Behind to the right in the photo, you can see the huge willow tree with the damage from the lightning strike fully exposed. We hope it lives.

My our willow tree has grown in just one year!

As the group effort was so wonderful, we all washed up and headed out for huge rewards! First stop, to acquire handfuls of "lickey licks" (ice cream), and head to the water's edge to recover. While there we noticed how lovely the bright blue sky looked against the white pillow puffy clouds to our right, and then when we glanced to our left, what a contrast. A ferocious storm was moving in, and fast!

Gorgeous skies one minute, a fierce storm the next

Not even 20 minutes lapsed between the photos above

Soon afterwards, gusty winds, hail, booming thunder and forks of lightning sounds in the skies and fell to the ground. Yikes!

Tornado warnings were sounding across the airwaves, and on the internet though we never heard or saw them. Just observing the sky we knew it was a scary storm approaching. And it was scary to find out four tornados touched down not far from our home, though no damage was done. We noted many funnel clouds and clouds zooming overhead to shadow that bright blue beautiful sky. Drats! What about my bark mulch I thought. What if the wind blew it all away?

I am happy to report, it rained so hard (monsoon flash flood) it all remained in place. Whew....we are so lucky.

Mosaic Meme

Fancy this fun today!

A photo mosaic meme for me to try.

GREAT FUN!

(Feel free to click the mosaic to see it larger)

This was so fun and I learned something new today, just when I was feeling a bit low and needed a boost. I first saw the results of this blog meme on Alison's blog, (thank you for the fun) who led her readers to Jessica's blog, and then I saw Matilda's mosaic. All are so beautiful, colorful and most interesting to boot!

So here's how you do this...

There are twelve questions to answer, thus twelve squares on the mosaic above. Here they are;

Questions;

1. What is your first name? Renee
2. Favorite food? Sushi, (Mexican a close second)
3. Where did you go to high school? Local to my teenage home
   
4. Favorite color? Blue/Greens
5. Celebrity crush? Hmmm...how about Pierce Brosnan.
6. Favorite drink? Love my latte, though I like a glass of "Italy's Santa Margarita Pinot Grigio" upon occasion and I loved this photo.
7. Dream vacation? After my hubby has his surgery, we want to visit the Mediterranean - Italy, Greece, etc. Just give us all of it, we'd live there for awhile to explore everything! So old world charming, and fabulous history, can't go wrong visiting there.
8. Favorite dessert? Fresh from the oven chocolate chip cookies
9. What do you want to be when you grow up? Just little ole me doing whatever God wants me to do, to know/love and serve...
10. What do you love most in life? My big beautiful Family
11. One word to describe you? Overflowing (with God's blessings in abundance)
12. Hobby? Taking photos, scrapbooking, all the same to me...memories to store forever.

YOUR invitation to join the fun!

Go ahead, have fun with this like I did today! Get on the bandwagon, come along and ride with us... Denise and Justine, I'm sure you'll love to get in on the fun, right?

So then, here's what you do with this. 1) Head over the Flicker and using the search box, type in the answers to the questions above, one at a time. 2) A page of photos will appear, and you are to choose your favorite from only the first page offered. 3) Copy and paste the URL into FDs mosaic maker at be sure to select your mosaic configuration first, three rows by four. 4) Save your image to your hard drive and then upload and post to your blog. 5) Copy the HTML code for flickr photo credits and paste them at the bottom of your post.

Share, share, share...because there are likely going to be no two alike!

....................................................................................................

My mosaic's photo credits....

1. Renee's Salon of Beauty Sign, 2. Tokyo Sushi - Spicy Tuna and Salmon, 3. Time..., 4. Mallorca 2007 -- Waiting for summer (Part 2), 5. brosnan, 6. Acquarello, 7. Montee du Souvenir, 8. 14th August 2007 / Day 226, 9. For the love of God, 10. Day 27/365: Two years, 11. come, thou fount of every blessing, 12. 8 days a week

Scenes from a Summer's Day, 9

Scenes from a Summer's Day, 9

A very first swim meet experience

The children were so nervous the night before their very first swim meet, not knowing what to expect from their day ahead. Knowing this was to be their first swim meet, their coaches were wise, only entering them in a few races. In fact, two of our son's were relay races with three other boys.

First though, try waking up two groggy teens on a Saturday morning sometime after 6:30am and see what happens. Actually in all fairness our two sleepy teens happily complied to rise and shine during these wee morning hours because they were going to be attending with us as swim meet volunteers for the duration of the day’s events.

They were two of ten timer volunteers for the day

Everything was new for us. Watching the children become more focused was interesting, especially when the grassy area surrounding the pool grew thick with other team members and their families who had traveled to participate in this same swim meet.

Warming up before the heats began

They've come a long way. Looking back to their very first day when they both attended their first swim team morning session, swimming laps “for fun” , my husband chuckled and thought he wouldn't be surprised if they would never choose to go back again.

Here we are now only a few weeks later and they can hardly wait for swim mornings, rise and shine very early alongside of me, though typically they are plum worn out when we arrive home later on, and sometimes a nap is a good thing if they require one.

If for only achieving extra endurance abilities, this swim meet stuff is mighty helpful. As the coaches introduce games and relays, everything has become very enjoyable to them, and they are so eager to perform the "butterfly stroke" and the "dolphin maneuvers". If only every swim team had so much fun, a little less rigid perhaps, certainly without any doubt more participants would be lining up to register for summer fun.

(Their race numbers were noted on their arms so they would remember to attend the marshaling sessions beforehand when each one was announced. Some children had numbers all the way up their arms.)

Pooped out, but she was so proud to do this.

The whole idea of joining a swim team was never something I wanted in the past. I felt the tremendous daily time commitment alone was too much for me, and usually the swim meets fell on entire weekends where families were expected to bring along their camper, tent or pay for lodging elsewhere. Not for me nor for our family.

Relay races were difficult because you
had to keep up for the sake of the team.
(Strong legs ahead for hockey season?)

So what’s different here?

Each morning as the alarm summons us to rise at 6:30am; our older daughter happens to require transportation to her horse barn summer duties. Three days a week, the young ones tag along and we head for the pool shortly afterwards so good timing on the early morning swims. Only three times each week compared to all five is doable. The relaxed atmosphere allows for absences and there are no rigid requirements to participate in swim meets should we choose not to.

There are no rigid swim suit requirements, no coaches shouting orders in ridiculous competitive ways, nothing of the sort. The children are all doing their best, and there is even one small four year old in their midst who swims well and participated alongside of them this past weekend for fun. Her proud parents and grandparents were there to cheer her on, however it was the rest of the team who screamed the most when her hand touched the wall at the end of her race. Not a dry eye in the parent area!

Overall, I have to admit, this past weekend the children were so thrilled to learn what a swim meet was all about, the rest of the family of course (except my hubby who couldn't handle being outdoors) were right by their side finding out all about it with them.

Surprisingly we were supposed to have a thunder storm interrupt the morning's events, but it never came until much later in the day. In fact, it soon became scorching hot for the duration of the meet, sunscreen desperately required.

We hear there are three more swim meets to come, so the rest of us will be there again, volunteering where needed. Bring it on!